Google designed Google Earth and Google Sketchup to work together very well. One nice feature is to be able to import aerial imagery and terrain information from Google Earth into Google Sketchup. There are many reasons we would want to do this, one obvious one being that we don't live on a flat plain. As I learn more about how to incorporate my designs into the Google Earth terrain I will share more.
The video below shows just how simple it is to import Google Earth images and terrain into our sketchup models. There are a couple settings in Google Earth that need to be correct in order for the import to work properly.
1. Make sure that the "Terrain" layer is turned on in Google Earth.
2. Make sure that the elevation exaggeration is set to "1". Do this in Google Earth by going to the "Tools" menu. Then "Options" › "View" › "Terrain Quality" › "Elevation Exaggeration" = 1.
3. Also for improved terrain and image quality you can set the Google Earth view area to the largest setting. In Google Earth: "Tools" › "Options" › "View" › "Detail Area" = Medium or Large.
After you do that all you have left to do is to zoom (in google earth) into the area you want to import and click the get current view icon in Google Sketchup. (Looks like the Google Earth icon)
Here is a video that shows how this is done. You can see that as you are working on your model, you can toggle on and off the image and the terrain.
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Believe it or not Google didn't design either GE or Sketchup. What is now Google Earth was bought by Google in 2004 from Keyhole, Inc. In late 2006 Google acquired Sketchup from a company called @Last, a software developer in Boulder Colorado.
At the time, industry annalists (mostly Wall Street boneheads) wondered aloud why Google would spend nearly half a billion on a software program that nobody (but a few architects and landscapers) had heard of. But it was precisely because of Sketchup's interoperability with Google Earth that they purchased the now wildly popular 3d modeling and visualization tool. They wanted the public to build a three dimensional electronic version of our world, to democratize the future of design, and to provide a platform for the future internet (3d web).
Thank you for the info on how google came about the two programs. I did not know that.
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